Jake Taylor
Jake Taylor is the Blue Cyber Ranger, although he was led to believe that he was intended to be nothing more than an emergency replacement. He is also the husband of Wendy Venturas-Taylor. Biography Little is known about Jake's childhood, other than that he already knew Walter Jenkins and Jeremy Simms. Also, he seems to have experience with housework. Encountering them outside S.P.D.'s Recruitment Center, he launched into an argument with Walter that resulted in both teens signing up for the Cyber V project. Jake did well enough in testing to be chosen, but as an alternate, to his chagrin. Meeting the Venturas twins, he immediately noticed Wendy, and barely waited for the full explanation of Cyber V to ask her out. Her disdain and threats of physical violence did nothing to dissuade him. When Emeralde attacked, Jake followed the Venturases and Cindy to the weapons lab for the Cyber Ops. When the morphers failed, the twins ordered them into the bomb shelter in back. Jake resisted, thinking they had no chance against Emeralde on their own, but eventually obeyed. Despite his desire to help "Brain Babe," he kept Cindy from intervening when Kalask's assassin defeated the Venturases, knowing they had no chance while she was there. Thanks to Matt's severe injuries, Jake gained active Ranger status, which he accepted easily, not noticing how badly the loss of their powers hurt the Twins. Despite his inexperience, the new Cyber Blue was gung-ho, both in the battle against evil and his quest to impress Wendy. Noticing that the scientist was upset over her broken glasses, he took them into Horizon to get them repaired--and was attacked by Cybrilla. After the fight, he went to return the repaired specs, but overheard Wendy complaining about how his attitude had nearly cost the team a member. Disheartened, he dropped the glasses and left. Wendy found them, and began to soften up. She still inflicted minor physical violence on him, but only when he asked for it. Sometimes literally. New York, New York The revelation of the twins' true nature as Venjix Hybrids didn't change Jake's feelings, but it led him to his next, drastic move. Interrupting Jindrax and Toxica's Late Show, he announced the upcoming press conference where the Rangers would reveal their secret identities, unknowingly inspiring Kalask's next attack. Jake's plan was to get himself booted from the team to let one of the Twins back on. Once Assassin was defeated, Jake and Cindy switched places with the Venturases to let them take down Emeralde. Instead of reinstating them, the paranoid President exposed them on national television. Jake blamed himself, but Cruger said his effort was noble. After a battle with Midnai and her pet, Precious, Wendy essentially asked Jake on a date. Jake didn't understand the change, but he was glad for the chance. Walter turned up while they were at a Ranger exhibit in the local museum and warned Jake that Cruger was worried Kalask might attack Wendy. At the restaurant, Jake verbally defended Wendy from a few patrons scared by news reports framing the Twins as evil. Now Wendy brought up the glasses incident, and the couple very nearly kissed--but a waiter interrupted with a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, the wine was enchanted by Midnai, and after a fight with Dreads, the Fiddler put Jake and Wendy under his spell, unable to stop dancing. Arriving, the others helped Jake morph, freeing him, but Wendy was forced to punch him and Walter and then join the villains, who began extracting nanites. The Rangers stopped them, but the loss left Wendy weakened. Jake ruined the moment by propositioning Wendy, and was knocked into a (thankfully clean) bedpan. Ignored by the self-overworked Twins, Jake discovered that Cindy was being harassed by an adult magazine editor. He offered to help, and although she was dubious, Cindy accepted. After defeating the Master of Weapons, Jake delivered, scaring the man with a vivid (probably accurate) description of the monster attack that would inevitably occur at a photo shoot. When Matt was kidnapped by Infiltrator, Wendy turned to Jake specifically, tearfully asking him to bring her brother back. Jake gave her a thumbs up, and fought hard on her behalf. In his and Walter's attempt to talk an enchanted and hostile Jeremy down, Jake handled the situation with a little more tact than usual, but thanks to General Sauder's bad timing, the Red Ranger fought his way out of Fort Myers anyway. Emoti-Con trapped Jake in an invisible box, though Anya freed him partway through the fight. Tigress hurt Jake severely, to the point where Cindy couldn't tell if he was alive or dead until he woke up. He was just able to tell her to be careful. (Later he brushed this off as delirium.) He recovered in time to face the upgraded Tigress, sort of, and put up a good fight, though the Techno Rangers again defeated Kalask's monster. Jake and Walter met an unusually cranky Matt, after hearing how his conversation with Jeremy had gone, and Matt informed Jake that until he stopped treating Wendy like a conquest, she'd never be interested in him. After he left, Walter told Jake he had a point, and Jake tenatively explained the Cybrilla incident. He had ''changed since arriving, as Walter agreed, though they still exchanged jibes. During a simulation exercise, both noticed that their relationship had improved, and decided to start taking their would-be romances seriously. In the next attack, Jake and Walter accompanied Cindy to Coffee Zombie, where Emeralde had taken the patrons hostage. Jake was jokingly against helping yuppies, but he and Walter agreed that Cindy should be in charge, since they were both too impulsive. Cindy did come up with a plan, having Walter set up explosive disks around the perimeter, and the trio entered the coffee shop. Emeralde released most of the hostages, and Cindy set off the trap, the trio destroying the Dreads. Emeralde revealed that the plan was Thrak's, and Jake realized that a power play was in session. After the inevitable Zord fight, the group returned to the secret lab only to leave with Matt, who'd realized Wendy was about to do something rash. They found her and a battered Sauder in his office, and the Twins and Anya revealed that the fight that had cost the Twins their Cyber Ops was a setup. Eventually, Jeremy ordered Jake and Walter to escort Sauder to sickbay, which they did--after Jake punched him in the stomach and threatened to out-revenge Wendy if it was true. One explanation later, Jake blew up at the General, only stopped by Jeremy's intervention--several times. After a brief intermission, in which they rescued the Techno Rangers from Kurse, everyone returned to the secret lab. There, Jake proceeded to get himself thrown across the room by Wendy, or rather her robotic duplicate. Confronting the real Twins, Jake called Matt out again for the "we're not friends" card. When Jeremy told the team that the Twins were leaving, Jake confronted Matt. After a brief (and for Matt, cathartic) fistfight, Jake told him to keep fighting for Anya and Mai. When the Techno and Cyber Rangers finally fought Kalask together, Jake complimented Wendy on how she looked in her suit, and earned himself an IOU for another slap. However, when faced with the possibility of destroying Kalask in Zord combat, Jake was reluctant. As he pointed out, with Kalask gone, Thrak or one of the other less scrupulous generals would take over. The others were forced to agree, and they drove Kalask down to normal size instead. After Kalask's retreat, Wendy was about to deliver on that smack, but the Commandroids interrupted. With the Twins' full explanation out of the way, Jake enjoyed the applause of Fort Myers' staff, and a surprise hug from Wendy. Jake was disappointed when Anya's suggested night out became a ladies' night out, and he sulked in the corner while the other guys kept themselves busy. Eventually, they got called downtown to deal with some Dreads, and then joined the girls to take down Hellion. During a brief stint as a child thanks to Youthinizer, Jake tried to look up Wendy's skirt, earning himself a noogie. Privately, he contacted Dr. Manx, and began setting up a "surprise" for the others. Later, he tried just talking to Wendy, though his lack of tact made it difficult. When Mindscape targeted Wendy, Jake immediately jumped in to help, eventually taking a blast of Zedd Waves for her. The Waves, being calibrated for Hybrids, didn't turn Jake into a mindless zombie, and at first, he seemed unhurt. However, he started flirting successfully with Wendy, tipping off his teammates that something was wrong. It turned out that the waves had reduced his aggression, making him much nicer and a terrible fighter. Since Jake actually enjoyed it, preferring Wendy over his powers, he didn't really want to fix the problem. The two of them went out for privacy, where they were attacked by Mindscape again. Jake was easily defeated, and Mindscape captured Wendy. This pushed Jake to decide that Wendy hating him was better than losing her, and he returned to his old self and destroyed the Z-Wave Generator. It was his new Megazord combination (the surprise Dr. Manx had helped him with) that destroyed Mindscape after he froze their Zords' programming. At Last, Success After the fight, Wendy found Jake on the rooftop, and apologized for taking advantage of his condition. He'd been consistent in his pursuit of her, while she'd constantly flip-flopped. She started to tell him to find someone better, but he stopped her and kissed her. Wendy wanted to keep their relationship a secret: when Jake asked, she said because she'd had her entire life under a microscope, and wanted one real secret. In the fight with Futuro, the monster's prediction for Jake was that congratulations were in order. Afterwards, Walter interrupted Jake and Wendy's rooftop tickle-fight. The two ended up chasing him down the stairs as he teased them. As Wendy's phobia got the best of her, the others revealed that they'd all known the two were a couple. Wendy was embarrassed, but Jake just focused on trying to comfort her--and continued doing so after she got an increasingly heavy shackle fastened to one wrist, and found out that she was losing her morpher again. Telling her not to give up, he left to fight Alphabet Soup, using the Pegasus Summoner and Pegasuszord for the first time. Once the ordeal had passed and Wendy conquered her phobia, Jake welcomed her back with a kiss. Horizon War When Tornado scattered the Rangers across the city, Jake ended up with Anya and Walter. The trio helped a few civilians, and found out Kalask had ordered them off-limits just before Thrak and Emeralde disobeyed that order. Jake and Walter managed well enough against Thrak until Kalask arrived to stop the pair. When Tem-Tar informed them that the Twins were in Winters' clutches, Jake immediately used the Pegasus Summoner, grabbed his teammates and flew to the scene. Jake found himself unable to go through the hypnotized Wendy to get Winters, and the whole team took a beating before Winters had the Hybrids morph. That actually broke the spell, but the team didn't have long to celebrate: Winters had the Twins shot with a new weapon that destroyed most of their nanites. A stricken, crying Jake held Wendy as she died, seconds after Matt. Turning on Winters, Jake fought hard, but to his bewilderment, the Twins soon reappeared, resurrected by Kalask using the nanites stolen from them before. As they and Tornado fought, Jake had the idea to combine everything with the Kyubizord, which Wendy realized could actually work. After the fight, Jake found Wendy again, and after some communication difficulties, proposed to her and got accepted. He also asked if they could get married ''now, which Wendy immediately agreed to. The next day, they did just that. Married Life A few days later, he caught her using her Reality Viewer (against orders) to find a universe that could potentially fight Kalask. As she showed him her best candidate, a quake shook the laboratory. When the couple recovered, they discovered that the Reality Viewer had taken Orange Lightspeed Ranger Jane Mitchell out of that universe and dumped her in theirs. Jake fought alongside his teammates and allies from the past against the Gatekeepers. After the fight, as Wendy drooled over a newly-discovered reality containing a mega-teamup of Rangers and Masked Riders (thanks to a now-safe Reality Viewer), Jake and Jeremy simultaneously decided enough was enough, and dragged her out of the room. Discovering that not only was Winters alive, but she was planning to nuke Horizon, Jake volunteered to take her down. Along with half of the team, he attacked the captured UN building. His and Wendy's revelation that they'd gotten married shocked Winters so badly she not only lost her hostages, but control of her nanites, and she transformed into a Hybrid to everyone's surprise. As Cruger judged Winters, Kalask intervened, revealing he'd been the one to inject her with nanites, which Jake thought was sick, despite his hatred for her. In the battle with Terror Toad, Jake was the first to be eaten. When Wendy freed him and the others, he and Matt pulled her out of the monster's mouth. Once the fight ended, he insisted on carrying her back to base piggyback. Jake was one of the Rangers kept on base while half of the team tracked Emeralde. He stopped by his house to tell Cindy and Wendy some new info, but Cindy kept him out of the kitchen, Wendy wouldn't come out, and it smelled like fire. Accepting them blaming it on the neighbors, he commented that some people shouldn't be allowed to cook and left. After the battle with Skullhound, the couple went home, and Wendy finally demorphed to show Jake her new Wasp-based look. He liked it, and this led into asking what she'd been doing all day, and then a confession of her failed attempts at housework. Jake told her to leave that stuff to him, and focus on what she was actually good at, not worry about "wife stuff." As Cruger and Sauder discussed Venja, Jake pointed out that her raw power wasn't the real danger: it was her knowledge, both of Fort Myers' arsenal and of the Twins and Anya. That evening, Jake attended the Halloween party with everyone else, dressing as the Phantom of the Opera and making the inevitable joke about Cruger's Anubis costume. When he and the others were abducted by SlaveDriver, Jake was the one that tried morphing, only to get zapped. His frustration remained, leading to several more shocks during the course of the ordeal. He was forced to stand by as Jeremy and Walter battled, seemingly to the death. When they were freed, he helped annihilate SlaveDriver. Multiverse Crush Crisis Jake fought Hawk and Angel, a pair of rogue Akra, along with his teammates at the Ranger Museum. When Wendy pulled out her Techno Silver upgrade, he approved. After the two Akra's interrogation he remained suspicious of their motives, and agreed that Wendy was acting strangely. He headed to her lab to talk to her. Wendy admitted she'd been using the robot duplicates of herself and Matt to help herself work, and wanted to know why she didn't trust them enough to just tell them what she was doing. He reassured her that they didn't need to be shielded. Weirdly she became uncomfortable when he embraced her, and he reluctantly left her alone to keep working. Their next fight was interrupted by the arrival of two Hourglass Rangers. They turned out to be after "Wendy"--and Jake agreed she'd been acting strangely. With Walter's help the team was able to exorcise the cause of her behavior, the Akra Queen, out of her, but she promptly attacked with an army of clones. He and Wendy were both very glad to have her back to normal. He was less thrilled to find out that the Akra Queen "shipped" her with Takuya. The Queen used Wendy's Reality Viewer to scatter the teams through space and time. Jake found himself with Cindy and Zanna in a jungle, which turned out to be Mirinoi circa 2005. Two of the Queen's clones followed them, but their fight drew the attention of a local team of Power Rangers called Rumor Legion. Jake was able to identify them thanks to Wendy--though the Rangers' behavior didn't quite match up with her description. Together the Rangers took down the clones, and headed back to the Rumor Legion base to find a way home. Jake collected autographs while the others worked out a way back to the Prime Reality. They had to go to the Hourglass base instead, where they met up with the other Rangers. He found the Hourglass Rangers' explanation of what was going on confusing. They were eventually able to get back into their reality, where they faced off against giant versions of the Akra Queen's clones. Their chances improved after Garfield was able to collect time-displaced versions of the Pegasus Summoner for everyone, and they got aid from a team of mysterious Rangers. Retrieving their Zords, they took the Queen down. He didn't mind too much when the Hourglass Rangers revealed that everyone had to get their minds wiped. Personality Jake maintains a deliberately cool, cocky attitude, with a lot of snark. He is very stubborn and competitive, and thinks outside the box, albeit often recklessly and with mixed consequences. As he grows more experienced, he becomes more of a team player, even resolving his issues with Walter. He is motivated mostly by his desire to win Wendy over and protect her, although their personality clashes made this a three steps forward, two steps backward process for a long time. Arsenal *Data Ray *Data Blade *Data Shield *MortarTread *Cyber Cycle *Output Cannon *Pegasus Summoner/Pegasus Armor (Galloping Crash) **Pegasus Smasher (Galloping Crush) **Pegasus Shield **Pegasus Blaster (Galloping Blast) *Pegasuszord/Equis-Wing Megazord **Blaster Mode **Equis Blade (Equis Crusher) Appearance Jake is Latino, with a casual athletic build and spiky, blonde-tipped hair. Trivia *The invisible box EmotiCon trapped Jake in is a reference to the "invisible box" mime routine. Category:Power Rangers Cyber V Category:Blue Rangers Category:Male